posted at 12:25 pm on January 22, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Hundreds or thousands of live, viable babies have been slaughtered over three decades in a Pennsylvania clinic, and now the two agencies that supposedly regulate medical facilities claim they didn’t know that their jurisdictions covered abortion clinics. Governor Tom Corbett has demanded answers within a week as to how Pennsylvania’s Departments of Health and State could have allowed Kermit Gosnell’s charnel house to continue its operations. His predecessor, Ed Rendell, declared himself “flabbergasted” to hear the excuses from the two bureaucracies:

Gov. Tom Corbett said Friday that he gave the Health Department and the secretary of State a one-week deadline to report to him on what happened in the bungled oversight of a squalid abortion clinic that a Philadelphia prosecutor described as a “house of horrors,” where babies born alive were killed with scissors.

Corbett told the Tribune-Review that he asked for a “detailed report” about how to prevent such a tragedy.

“You can imagine from my role coming as attorney general that we’re going to find out exactly what happened on this side,” said Corbett, the former state attorney general and one-time U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, who was sworn in as governor Tuesday.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell said yesterday that he was “flabbergasted” to learn last year that the state Health Department did not believe its authority extended to abortion clinics. …

“I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services,” Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor and district attorney, said in a statement. ” … I immediately directed them to inspect these facilities. It was simply preposterous that the department took this position, ever.”

Not only should Rendell be “flabbergasted,” everyone should be skeptical in the extreme about this excuse. It’s not as if the DoH and the DoS in Pennsylvania never bothered to look into Gosnell’s abbatoir. The grand jury report is damning on these counts. DoH officials admitted to the grand jury that they knew full well their mandate covered abortion clinics, and indeed that authority is expressly written into the law:

Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act charges DOH with regulating and overseeing the performance of abortions and the facilities where abortions are performed “so as to protect the health and safety of women having abortions and of premature babies aborted alive.” 18 Pa.C.S. §3207(a). Abortion facilities require the department’s approval to begin operating.

The DoH didn’t bother to do inspections between 1980 and 1989, but in the latter year found plenty of cause for concern:

By 1989, Gosnell, who is not board-certified as either an obstetrician or a gynecologist, was the only doctor at the facility. The DOH site reviewers also noted that there were no nurses working at the clinic. Blood work was no longer sent out to an independent lab, but was done, supposedly, by “medical assistants.” And in 7 of the 30 patient files reviewed, there was no lab work recorded. The evaluators noted several violations of Pennsylvania abortion regulations, including: no board-certified doctor on staff or contracted as a consultant; no nurses overseeing the recovery of patients; no transfer agreement with a hospital for emergency care; and no lab work recorded in several files. Even so, based on mere promises to improve documentation and filing, and to hire nurses, the DOH site reviewers recommended approval of Gosnell’s clinic for another 12 months.

It took almost three years for DoH to reinspect the facility, however — and they found that little had changed:

Two and a half years later, in March 1992, when DOH representatives next inspected the clinic, there were still no nurses to monitor patient recovery. Evaluators Janice Staloski and Sara Telencio noted that Gosnell was still the only doctor (a Dr. Martin Weisberg was listed as a consultant); that the facility employed no nurses; and that medical assistants were doing lab work. They did indicate there was adequate access for stretchers and wheelchairs, though it is not clear how they reached this conclusion: The facility is multi-leveled and has no elevator.

There is nothing to suggest that these evaluators reviewed any patient files. Gosnell reported performing 62 second-trimester abortions in the previous year, yet the DOH inspectors left blank the section in their report on anesthesia, including who is permitted to give it, what their qualifications are, and the type of anesthesia they are permitted to administer. Also left blank was a section titled “Post-Operative Care,” which addresses the legal requirement that the recovery room be monitored at all times by a registered nurse or a licensed practical nurse under the supervision of a physician – the same regulation that the clinic was cited for violating three years earlier. Nevertheless, the evaluators inexplicably concluded on March 12, 1992, that there were “no deficiencies,” and DOH approved Gosnell’s clinic to continue to perform abortions.

The next inspection was conducted on April 8, 1993, by DOH evaluators Susan Mitchell and Georgette Freed-Wolf. This was also the last site review – until February 2010, when an inspection occurred because law enforcement executed search warrants for illegal drug activity. In the 1993 review, Gosnell was the only doctor listed on staff, but “Dr. Weisberg” was still described as a consultant. Four years after Gosnell had promised to hire nurses to oversee the recovery room, there was still none. Lab work was still being performed by unspecified “medical assistants,” whose qualifications the
evaluators apparently did not question, since that section of the review was left blank. For the third time, inspectors found the access for stretchers and wheelchairs adequate, even though the facility’s layout had become even more convoluted and the building still did not have an elevator.

The DoH knew that their mandate included abortion centers; they just decided not to bother inspecting Gosnell or doing anything about the obvious deficiencies. They willfully turned a blind eye until 1993, and then simply stopped bothering to check on Gosnell at all.

Nor was DoH alone in this pattern of willful obtuseness. The grand jury detailed a number of instances in which the Department of State ignored ongoing atrocities in Gosnell’s operation, where prosecutors clearly knew they had the power to press charges and declined to do so — or even investigate the numerous allegations of malpractice and fraud:

Attorneys for Pennsylvania’s Department of State disregarded notices that numerous patients of Gosnell were hospitalized – infected, with fetal remains still inside them; and with perforated uteruses, cervixes, and bowels. Incredibly, in 2004, Department of State attorneys closed – without investigation – a case reported to the Board involving the death of 22-year-old Semika Shaw.

Between 2002 and 2009, Board of Medicine attorneys reviewed five cases involving malpractice and other complaints against Gosnell. (The Grand Jury also received records of three older complaints – from 1983, 1990, and 1992 – one of which resulted in a reprimand.) None of the assigned attorneys, or their supervisors, suggested that the Board take action against the deviant doctor. In fact, despite serious allegations, three of the cases were closed without any investigation. The other two were investigated and then closed – without any action being taken.

The grand jury also noted that prosecutors declined to press charges in the death of Semika Shaw in 2002 after being notified by Gosnell’s insurer of a malpractice settlement, as required by law. They conducted no investigation beyond regurgitating the summary sent to them by the insurer, and yet the same prosecutors knew of at least one other complaint against Gosnell that contained many of the same allegations Pennsylvania now brings in its indictment against Gosnell and his staff. Indeed, the prosecutors dismissed that complaint on the very same day they dismissed the Semika Shaw case:

What makes these prosecutors’ inaction even more astonishing is that they did know more than the bare facts included in the Board attorney’s evaluation of the case. On the same day in 2004 that they decided not to do anything about Semika Shaw’s death, these same two prosecutors also closed the investigation into the complaint brought to the Department of State more than two years earlier by Marcella Stanley Choung. That was the complaint that had alerted the Board of Medicine – eight years before Karnamaya Mongar died – to almost all of the same violations revealed by this Grand Jury’s investigation.

In December 2001, Marcella Stanley Choung had filed a detailed, written complaint with the Pennsylvania Department of State. Although she wanted to remain anonymous, she provided her name and her phone number, and participated in a follow-up interview on March 4, 2002. She informed the department investigator that Gosnell was using unlicensed workers (including herself) to give IV anesthesia to patients when he was not at the clinic; that his facility was filthy; that two sick, flea-infested cats roamed freely in the procedure rooms, vomiting throughout; that Gosnell ate in the procedure rooms; that the autoclave used to sterilize instruments was broken; that he reused single-use curettes; that there were no licensed nurses at the facility when IV anesthesia was administered; that Gosnell allowed one patient to use her cousin’s insurance card to pay for an abortion; that Gosnell performed abortions on “underage children” against their will if their mothers asked him to; and that he performed other abortions without consent forms.

Choung told the Department of State investigator that she thought a second trimester patient had died at a hospital after Gosnell performed an abortion on her. And she said that she had seen patient files in which he prescribed 90 Percocet tablets (a narcotic combining oxycodone and acetaminophen) for a patient one week and then, again, 90 more tablets the next week. She gave very detailed information about the files, what she saw, and when. She provided the name of at least one patient, and suggested that the investigator look at her file. Choung wrote that any of the other clinic workers – except one named Jonathan – would be willing to confirm her information.

But the investigator with the Department of State did not question any of the other unlicensed workers. And the Board of Medicine did not use its subpoena power to obtain files to substantiate Choung’s complaint. No one even asked to see the facility or its files. The investigation consisted of three interviews – one with Gosnell; one by telephone with another doctor, Dr. Warren Taylor, who said he performed abortions at the clinic in 2001; and one with a pharmacist two blocks from the clinic on Lancaster Avenue.

Gosnell told easily-checkable lies in his interview with prosecutors:

Gosnell, according to the investigator’s report, did not directly contradict many of Choung’s allegations, but made excuses instead. He also told outright lies that could easily have been disproved. He said the clinic was licensed as a surgical facility – which it was not and is not. This fact could have been confirmed by a simple call to the Department of Health, or by an internet search. Gosnell claimed that he did not use Schedule II controlled substances for anesthesia, even though he did.

Gosnell asserted that he always administered the anesthesia, something any of the clinic workers would have refuted. He acknowledged that he let his patients choose their own anesthesia from mixes entitled “heavy,” “twilight sleep,” and “custom sleep” – names that should have been a tip-off that someone at the clinic was heavily sedating patients. Gosnell declined to provide a written response to Choung’s allegations.

Still, no one at the Department of State probed further to see if one of Choung’s most serious contentions – that unlicensed employees were administering the anesthesia with no medical professional present – was true. The investigator did not request to see any files. His notes indicate that he “visited the area of Women’s Medical Society,” but there is no indication that he asked to go in. He conducted his interview of Gosnell at a regional office in King of Prussia rather than at the doctor’s office where he could have confirmed many of Choung’s allegations first hand.

In this case, the investigaor did recommend further action in 2002. That came in 2004 – when prosecutors dismissed the complaint on the same day they dismissed the Shaw case.

The argument by both departments that they didn’t think their jurisdiction extended to abortion clinics is a bald-faced lie. They knew full well that they had the authority to conduct investigations and to prosecute violations. They just didn’t want to do it. As the grand jury concluded, the neglect by both DoH and DoS for “abortion patients’ safety and of Pennsylvania laws is clearly not inadvertent: It is by design.”

Gosnell and his staff of ghouls face criminal prosecution for their crimes. Corbett and his team should pursue charges against public officials for gross dereliction of duty — and start checking to see how many more Gosnells are operating charnel houses in the Keystone State with impunity because of it.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

They should open up a new wing in Gitmo for all these folks. This is insane!!!!! From DOH to the Clinic they should lock up everyone in this case that allowed this murderous group to continue.
Not sure if anyone knows but are these organizations, DoH and others Unionized?????

How aboout a nationwide moratorium on every last abortion mill throughout the country. This is 1000 times worse than the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and should have a 1000 times more appropriate response.

What has me outraged is that other than here at HotAir, the Drudge Report, and Fox News, I see nothing about this horror story being extensively reported on any of the major news outlets!

This is a story of unimaginable proportion and the only thing the media seems to be covering right now is Olbermann’s being canned at MSNBC or the football games on Sunday or Obama coloring his hair! It is as if they are virtually ignoring this terrible story in Philadephia!

What is the heck has happened to journalism in this country?!!! WHAT?!!!!

Here’s Ed Rendell’s best quote in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning about why this is such a tragic situation:

“It’s a tragic situation, obviously. All of those of us who are pro-choice abhor this because it casts a negative light on that movement. All of us believe abortion should be legal, but it should be safe. Clearly, what this physician was doing was not safe. It’s not safe for the mother. It’s certainly not safe for the fetus.”

Reports say Gosnell made millions over the years. The liklihood that people in authority were getting paid off is very high. I hope the investigation is looking into that possibility. I’d like to question some of these investigators and attorneys who refused to take any action despite all the information they had indicating Gosnell was not only breaking the law but endangering the lives of so many women.

I’d like to question some of these investigators and attorneys who refused to take any action despite all the information they had indicating Gosnell was not only breaking the law but endangering the lives of so many women.

mbs on January 22, 2011 at 12:54 PM

Corbett can’t avoid an aggressive followup, even if he was so inclined. This thing will eventually gain legs. If the tentacles reach outside the state, the impacts could be far reaching. Don’t forget the drug charges and DEA involvement which first broke it open.

If this situation plays out as other death-causing scandals, there will be an “investigation” that will find that the cause was a “failure of the system”, and that said failure has been “remedied”. If there’s still heat in 9 years when the investigative body publishes its conclusions, a lower level paper-pusher will be “assigned other duties.” The very worst will be the forced retirement of said paper-pusher with full 6-figure retirement package.

It will be interesting to see what Junior Casey does with this in his 2012 senate re-election. His late father was a pro-life governor. Junior has been voting for bills, including Obamacare, that fund abortions here and abroad.

Junior has been riding his father’s coattails all his life. Without the Casey name, Junior would be lucky to get a job sweeping streets.

Corbett can’t avoid an aggressive followup, even if he was so inclined. This thing will eventually gain legs. If the tentacles reach outside the state, the impacts could be far reaching. Don’t forget the drug charges and DEA involvement which first broke it open.

a capella on January 22, 2011 at 1:05 PM

Corbett has given the officials one week to explain. After that, I hope he fires everyone and anyone in DOH and DOS who had anything to do with this. If they whine about being civil service or wrongfully discharged, he can say, “Hey, I’m a lawyer. Sue me.”

Is there a racial breakdown of the murdered children? Or is it inappropriate to ask?
Rod on January 22, 2011 at 1:04 PM

Given the neighborhood, I’d say most were poor and minority. Gosnell had separate, cleaner rooms for the white women who came in from the burbs to get third term abortions no suburban doctor would do (but may have referred them for…)

I’m so pissed off about this I could scream. I’ve rationally debated abortion for 5 years, but I’m at the end of my rope. If you support abortion, you’re a monster on par with Gosnell and his cronies. This is what “choice” looks like. Own it.

Did you notice all the red eyes and tears in those mugshots? One wonders what emotions are behind those tears.

pugwriter on January 22, 2011 at 1:04 PM

I did. I guess everyone is wondering if it’s remorse or sadness in having gotten caught. I pray they will find spiritual healing for their soul-less souls. I cannot imagine how one would find peace, once the depth of their depravity is realized. If they open their eyes to Truth and no longer believe lies they’ve been fed for decades about the inhumanity of all these children they killed. I think the reality will drive them mad.

I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services,

Even Fast Eddie Rendell has to understand the hypocrisy of that statement. Can someone please match up the name “Department of Health” and “abortion” and try to reconcile that? C’mon, Mr. Rendell, abortion, by its very nature, is unhealthy.

This is one case where I think there is good cause for the local Tea Party to get involved — as this is a social issue that has risen to a Constitutional level. The babies were deprived a life — which, if I recall, is one of the BIG THREE.

We’ll see. It’s already outside the lines. I anticipate something from BOR and Hannity this week. No reason some congresscritters couldn’t make a few comments for the record. Prolifers aren’t without weapons on this if they keep pushing it, particularly with public sentiment moving over to our side. Steyn, VDH, Malkin, Coulter. Keep it out there.

Shame on the State of Pennsylvania. One wonders how many other states are in the same position. “Pro choicers” meet the result of your advocacy. It is yours and no, you can’t duck it or claim ignorance.

What I’m basically reading in the article is black unborns are not worth bothering to save. Even their own don’t want them if they can be sacrificed for a few bucks. Not ONE article I searched out would state the race of the assistant also indicted, but dollars to donuts she’s black too.

Did you notice all the red eyes and tears in those mugshots? One wonders what emotions are behind those tears.

pugwriter on January 22, 2011 at 1:04 PM

I did. I guess everyone is wondering if it’s remorse or sadness in having gotten caught. I pray they will find spiritual healing for their soul-less souls. I cannot imagine how one would find peace, once the depth of their depravity is realized. If they open their eyes to Truth and no longer believe lies they’ve been fed for decades about the inhumanity of all these children they killed. I think the reality will drive them mad.

hoosiermama on January 22, 2011 at 1:11 PM

Redemption is available for everyone, even murderers. What is truly sickening is what we all know: this story is multiplied, in various degrees, all across America. One cannot be mildly pro-choice; this is the logical end to that attitude.

Shame on the State of Pennsylvania. One wonders how many other states are in the same position. “Pro choicers” meet the result of your advocacy. It is yours and no, you can’t duck it or claim ignorance.

Mason on January 22, 2011 at 1:17 PM

They know it, that’s why the media has been silent on this. This would be to abortion what the China Syndrome was to nuclear power.

It will be interesting to see what Junior Casey does with this in his 2012 senate re-election. His late father was a pro-life governor. Junior has been voting for bills, including Obamacare, that fund abortions here and abroad.

Junior has been riding his father’s coattails all his life. Without the Casey name, Junior would be lucky to get a job sweeping streets.

Wethal on January 22, 2011 at 1:07 PM

Every time I called “pro-life” Junior’s office during the Obamacare battle in the Senate, his staffers assured me that he could, “as a devout Catholic,” in “good conscience” vote for Obamacare because it did “not provide federal funding” for abortion, that the whole thing was a “Fox News lie,” and that it was wrong of me to “question his integrity or principles.”

I told them it would indeed be wrong of me to question his integrity and principles, since both are apparently non-existent.

I can’t wait to vote against this empty-headed, faux-Catholic, Obama rubber stamp next year.

I certainly hope it stays out there. This should be a crisis the right could use to spotlight abortion and at least win removal of all federal abortion funding. Why are they not shouting this story from the rooftops? Including the gory details?

Gov. Tom Corbett said Friday that he gave the Health Department and the secretary of State a one-week deadline to report to him on what happened…

Can you say “paper shredder?”

If you ask a regulatory agency what they regulate, and you can’t get a straight answer within two seconds, it’s perfectly safe to say that you never ever will.

There is absolutely no way a regulatory body could possibly need a week to answer this question. But, by coincidence, that is just the right amount of time it will take to completely expunge all the incriminating evidence from their files, and for the two agencies to get their mutual finger-pointing properly coordinated.

I hate to interject politics in this but it has to be said, the abortion lobby is so militant against anyone or any agency poking their head into what goes on within the walls of abortion clinics (their definition of privacy rights), that I’m convinced they helped create the toxic atmosphere of neglect for something like this to happen.

Liberal conditioning. I recall an episode of “The West Wing” where the object lesson du jour was abortion. Of course, the villain that had to be told off was the pro-lifer character in the story. Martin Sheen was saying in a calm exchange the issue was fair debate (yadda yadda) but was angered when he confides he knew of an acquaintance whose family was sent pro-life lit in the mail. Supposedly one of the families children sees the picture and is traumatized. It’s not fair I guess to understand what it looks like.

Did you notice all the red eyes and tears in those mugshots? One wonders what emotions are behind those tears.
pugwriter on January 22, 2011 at 1:04 PM

Are you kidding? There are only two emotions any of these “people” are feeling right now:

1. SELF-pity, and
2. Absolutely nothing else.

For crying out loud, it’s not like they got drunk and ended up in a bar fight or something. They got up every morning, and went to work busily mutilating and killing (literally) mounds of babies every day for YEARS.

And all that time, they all knew perfectly well exactly what they were doing; they had no momentary lapse of judgement. They are monsters through-and-through, period.

I agree that money was a huge part of this….but I also think for the poor…it’s a disdain for them. No respect for them. Obviously mothers forcing their underaged daughters into this, should be held to contempt as well.

Every time I read an article about this, I get sickened, and saddened to my core over it. But we need to face, and confront this kind of evil head on. Not turn away from it, in disgust, and anger. It’s time to stand up, and put an end to this kind of atrocity.

Shame, anger, contempt, and repulsion. There’s enough of it to go around. Not just for the doctor, and his inept employees…but to everyone who knew…and did nothing. The blood of this is on your hands just as much as the doctors.

I’m thinking that this situation parallels the Gulf Oil Spill. You know, where lax and somewhat ineffective inspection of drilling rigs is turned into a six month moratorium (and now essentially longer) on any new drilling permits.

Abortion clinics ought to be shut down for six months until the whole business is under control.

The defendants face first-degree murder in the cases of seven babies for which there is substantial evidence, Williams said. The babies were born alive and viable, he said. Williams said he may seek the death penalty for Gosnell, 69, who with his associates was arrested on Wednesday. Gosnell was charged with murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abortion at 24 or more weeks and other charges. Pennsylvania law prohibits abortion after 24 weeks except to save the life of the mother or avoid serious health risk to her.

At a minimum, the mothers would/should have known that they were well beyond 24 weeks, which made the abortion illegal in the first place. I’m not advocating for charging the mothers, but think this raises an interesting issue.